19: Decisions

Brig­it felt her­self huff­ing for breath as she drug Sea­mus down the main hall of the of­fice. A few groans had es­caped him from time to time dur­ing the jour­ney and she had tak­en no great care to make sure he had a smooth ride. When she reached the door to his per­son­al of­fice, she slammed it open, not car­ing that it bounced off the wall and re­turned to smash the wound­ed Reaper on the head as she pulled him across the thresh­old. With some ef­fort, Brig­it man­aged to lift him on­to the couch that dou­bled as his bed dur­ing his down time. She stood over him for a mo­ment longer, won­der­ing if that should be the ex­tent of her kind­ness to­ward him af­ter his threat to kill her.

Her mind was still burn­ing with the ir­ri­ta­tion of his threat as she left the of­fice and went to the sup­ply clos­et down the hall. In­side, she found pil­lows and blan­kets meant for those Reapers who tend­ed to re­side as well as work at the main of­fice. Though a Reaper re­quired no re­al rest, the pre­vi­ous heads of the firm had of­ten en­cour­aged it as a means of pro­long­ing the burn out stage. Quick­ly, she grabbed a pil­low and a blan­ket for Sea­mus and re­turned to his of­fice. He was be­gin­ning to twitch and shake. The in­fec­tion was be­gin­ning to set in. Know­ing there was lit­tle more she could do for him now, Brig­it shoved the pil­low un­der his head and un­furled the blan­ket over his body. She had nev­er been the ma­ter­nal type and she was damned sure not go­ing to start act­ing the part now. Es­pe­cial­ly where Sea­mus Flan­nery was con­cerned.

With that thought in mind, Brig­it turned and looked around the small quar­ters. A small desk sat against the wall. The files she and John had com­piled be­fore Sea­mus’ hir­ing had been brought in and lined against the wall ad­ja­cent to the desk. There were on­ly a cou­ple dozen box­es, but Brig­it was well aware that they were stocked full to the brims with port­fo­lios of po­ten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous as­sign­ments. A thick black book lay open on the desk. Brig­it stepped clos­er to have a look. Through the dim light of the of­fice win­dow, she could see in a ter­ri­ble scrawl the names of those as­sign­ments that Sea­mus had com­plet­ed. The Irish­man was tak­ing his re­spon­si­bil­ities on the ad­min­is­tra­tive part of his job quite se­ri­ous­ly, she not­ed as she qui­et­ly closed the book.

An­oth­er moan es­caped him and she glanced over her shoul­der. He had been keep­ing a rel­ative­ly de­cent pace in com­plet­ing his as­sign­ments. Once he was well, he was go­ing to be be­hind again. Brig­it frowned. She knew John would be none-​to-​pleased with that no­tion. She would have to fig­ure out a way to man­age some of Sea­mus’ files in with her own. It was a risk, she knew, but it on­ly seemed fair. She had set the firm back by al­low­ing Sea­mus to get hurt. She would have to man­age the work load by her­self un­til Sea­mus was well or John had re­turned.

Brig­it’s frown deep­ened at the thought of John’s re­turn. She had no idea how she was go­ing to ex­plain this to her men­tor. The truth would prob­ably be the best route, she de­cid­ed as she sighed deeply. In the mean time, Brig­it knew, she was go­ing to be work­ing some se­ri­ous over­time. She’d be lucky to see Mag­gie any­time soon…

As that thought set­tled in on her mind Brig­it went to the stack of box­es against the wall and reached in­to the one miss­ing its lid. She with­drew a stack of files and stuffed them in­to her coat pock­et. She would just have to do the best she could un­til she could fig­ure things out more clear­ly.

Sea­mus could feel the fire run­ning through his veins. He was un­sure, though, whether it was his anger or the sick­ness John had warned him about in the case of a se­ri­ous in­jury. She had let him go in­to the bat­tle alone. She had stood aside and mere­ly watched as he had tak­en on the gang mem­bers when she had been sent to as­sist him. She had al­ways led on that she was such a brave soul, a dyke ca­pa­ble of tak­ing on any­thing; but it had all been a farce. Dyke or not, Sea­mus an­gri­ly re­al­ized, Brig­it Mal­one was still a fe­male and fe­males were weak. Ul­ti­mate­ly, Sea­mus had lost his fight be­cause of the fe­male Reaper and her ruse of brav­ery. She would pay for that, Sea­mus de­ter­mined as wave af­ter wave of nau­sea and fire rushed through his body. She would pay dear­ly for it one way or an­oth­er…